


Weakness

by MirandaBeth



Series: 10 ficlet challenge - the White Witch [2]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 06:47:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirandaBeth/pseuds/MirandaBeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After all this time, it turns out what she needed was never to be more powerful than him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weakness

**Author's Note:**

> 10 ficlet challenge. Prompt: "pity".

Logically, she knows Aslan will come to the Stone Table, that he will not fight her, and that he will die. He has promised, after all, and he is foolish and _predictable_. She knows this, but doesn't quite believe it until after she sees him approach. Then she knows with a deep certainty it was always going to end this way.

She still can't meet his eyes.

She once saw him create life out of darkness. That day she was forced to learn that she had never truly known power, and the thought of his return has haunted her since she took Narnia, that sour kernel of truth in the pit of her stomach that she could not stand against him.

But after all this time, it turns out what she needed was never to be more powerful than him. It was just to be less weak.

It is his weakness that drives him to her that night. Oh, he calls it by other names: pity, nobility, honour. Love – for a creature worth less than nothing! For these so-called qualities, he makes himself weak. He is weak. These things have blinded him to the obvious loophole in their agreement, that he may offer up his own death to satisfy the Deep Magic, but she does not need the Magic to kill the humans he so wants to protect.

Yet even when he is beaten and bound and shorn, mocked and _defeated_ , he acts like doing this, this noble, _stupid_ thing, is not losing. He cannot die until he knows how wrong he is. "And now, who has won?" she says, and lays the facts out for him, her voice shaking with triumph. Even as she raises the knife, she searches his face, hungering for that moment of realisation.

His eyes meet hers, and it's like a physical blow. They are patient, kind, loving eyes. They pity _her. I would do this for you_ , they say, _if you would let me_.

She strikes. His eyes go dull.


End file.
